Ann Lemons Pollack

  • Rabbit Hole

    Parents never truly “get over” the loss of a child, but they must keep their relationship open and their discussions honest if they want to get past the terrible event and live successful lives. David Lindsay-Abaire’s outstanding play, “Rabbit Hole,” looks at the event in the lives of a suburban family, and tackles the difficult

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  • One Man, Two Guvnors

    Britain's National Theatre, along with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Metropolitan Opera or the Bolshoi Ballet, are national treasures, renowned throughout the world for their contributions to the arts. Their work is brilliant, but not always classic or heavy — and St. Louisans can see for themselves tomorrow and next Saturday when a filmed production

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  • Moneyball

    One of the rare sports movies that has an intelligent approach to baseball, and which does not end with a game, “Moneyball” is an interesting movie, even though it projects a concept that I abhor, the overuse of statistics by announcers, writers and others who are not skillful enough to properly describe what they are

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  • New Orleans: Pascal’s Manale

    Heirloom tomatoes. Heritage pork. Lots of old, traditional foods are being rediscovered and saluted, thanks to heroic cooks and restaurateurs who didn’t let them die out. It’s that way with restaurants, too, sometimes. And there are plenty of examples in New Orleans, a city where, like St. Louis, “We’ve always done it this way,” is

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  • Fin Japanese Cuisine

    St. Louis has slowly reached a comfortable number of sushi restaurants; fans of the style, and of Japanese cuisine, do not have to make a lengthy journey to eat well. It also means that little things can make one place stand out over another. Fin Japanese Cuisine, across Clarkson Road from Chesterfield Mall, welcomed us

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  • Another Piece of St. Louis History Gone

    This summer, we were in London and attended the funeral for Fran Landesman, one of the proprietors of Gaslight Square's legendary Crystal Palace, poet and songwriter. (Barbra Streisand, for one, gives her big props.) She was quite a woman, and the funeral was…quite an experience. You can read the whole tale here in St. Louis

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  • Dirty Blonde

    Mae West probably achieved more success with less talent than anyone in entertainment history. When it came to acting, singing or dancing, her grades were low. But she was brash and buxom and practically fearless, and she led the league in flaunting her sexuality at a time when it either angered or appalled people, making

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  • Higher Ground

    Doubt stands victorious! That's the best part of "Higher Ground," the latest in a flurry of movies with religious themes that are arriving like the falling leaves of the season. Vera Farmiga, who garnered a lot of notice when she played opposite George Clooney in "Up in the Air," returns as writer, director and star,

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  • Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow

    Anselm Kiefer is a German-born artist who lives in France. In 1993, on an 85-acre site near Barjac, in southern France, he began creating his own little universe, filled with buildings, statues, monuments, underground galleries and corridors and dozens of pieces of the art that marks, maybe defines, his life. "Over Your Cities Grass Will

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  • Circumstance

    Maryam Keshavarz is a young Iranian-American filmmaker, born and reared in the United States but with some education in Iran. Like most young people, she has a strong desire for freedom and uses her film, "Circumstance," to make her case. Unfortunately, she makes her case far-reaching and over-ambitious, so instead of campaigning for, say, the

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